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“Tristan, may I talk with you?”

“Of course, Theo. What’s up?”

Looking around him, the gray tabby cat’s expression showed everything from simple concern to something like fear. “Would you come to my room?”

I nodded, rising from my table in the dining room, bussing my dishes for the “lunchtime” meal, noting the time as 7:12 (or, more precisely, 19:12) on the large analog clock that hung on the far wall. “Are you working this evening?”

“No, I’m off. It’s not… I mean, I just…”

My side-to-side hug was enough to quiet him, and he helped by carrying my plate while I rescued the mug I’d been using. Rinsing everything took little time, and the cat was patient while we put things away. We took the back stairs, arriving on the upper landing, near Abram’s rooms, then padded down the hall to his room. All of the living spaces on this floor, except for Abram’s more extravagant rooms, are the same general configuration — two rooms with an ensuite off the bedroom and a mini-kitchen with dining nook area off the living room. It’s the way each individual decorates or uses the space that makes the difference. I’d not been in Theo’s rooms before, so I was curious to see how he had made the space his own.

The living room was neater than might be expected of a 19-year-old male (I think it’s unlawful for any single male, at any age, to be too tidy). Posters on his walls were put into very simple frames that kept them (and the walls) free of pushpins or thumbtacks. One was for a band I’d actually heard of; another was a reproduction of a fantasy work from a very fine artist named Pitre. Pictures and photographs took up a large corkboard panel on another wall. The mini-kitchen area was neat. A dish, bowl, glass, and a few items of silverware were clean and standing in the drainer; like any smart person who lived in his own quarters, keeping one-of-each was a sure way to avoid stacks of dirty dishes in the sink.

He waved me to his couch, and I sat myself down. He folded himself easily into a cross-legged position that allowed him to face me. I brought up a leg to be able to turn toward him and offered him a smile. “How may I help you, Theo?”

After a short pause, the lean young feline said, “I need you to write my story.”

Surprised by the swiftness of this asking, I temporized with, “Certainly, if you wish. I know some of your story, but I’d like to know more about how you came to be here, and—”

“No, not that.” He shook his head quickly, his eyes still holding mine. “I want you to write what happens next.”

That stopped my brain entirely, and I simply looked at him blankly.

Breathing in carefully, to calm himself, he let the breath out with the words, “Tristan, I want to know what I do next.”

I reached out a forepaw to him, and he took it in his own. “Theo,” I said as tenderly as I could, “how can I know what you do next?”

“Your stories about the family always work out. I want to know that my story works out, before I…” He caught himself.

“…before you do something that might not work out.” I squeezed his forepaw gently, hoping that I’d caught his brainwave correctly.

His ears splayed, his agitated tail tried to hide itself, and the look on his face was one of embarrassment that only a yowen can make. He had the appearance of someone so caught out that he would never live it down, even though I was the only furson to witness it. He tried to look away, and I brought his gaze back to my own eyes as I leaned forward to say just one word:

“Family.”

A very short time later, his ears turned back toward me, the tightness in his shoulders relaxed, and he managed a nod. Another breath, another short nod, and he said, “How about I start over?”

“I just sat down,” I smiled at him. “You said that you wanted to talk with me, and I’m ready to listen.”

He paused again, his tail less bottle-brushy than before but still making anxious little movements. “I have no idea where to start.”

Nodding a little, I said, “That’s why you want me to tell the story. You want to put order to it.”

“Yes.” He managed a weak smile. “You told me that your characters will talk to you, tell you their stories. I think I’m hoping you’ll hear my story without my having to tell it.”

That made me laugh, affectionately, which he understood. “It works a little differently with real fursons. Besides, you might not like how I start your story, if you let me tell it on my own. I’d start with something like, ‘There once was a very handsome young feline named Theo, who…’ ”

He blushed furiously and tried not to giggle. “You would not!”

“Okay,” I shrugged, “maybe not. Doesn’t make it any less true.” I considered the young male in front of me. “Sometimes, my characters come to me because something has happened to them, and they need to tell me the story of what they did about it, what they felt, what they want to remember, how they want to move forward.”

My pause did not hammer the point unnecessarily. Theo looked at me with an affectionate eye, a smile and gentle nod following easily afterward. “I got an email. It was from Conner. Haven’t heard from him in… He was my first, we were each other’s first, and his folks found out, then mine, and then I was on the street, and the family found me, this one, not his or mine, I mean real family. We’d lost touch after I came here, lost touch with Conner I mean, and then this email shows up, he found me online, like an accident or something, and he says he wanted to see me, that he heard something about my parents, and did I want to know, and he wanted to tell me all the news in person, and it was all such great news, he wanted me to know, and I think my parents want to talk to me, and I don’t know why, the way they threw me out, and it’s been six years, and why would Conner want to see me after all this time, and I don’t think I want to see my parents, my birth parents I mean, and there’s so much churning up, memories and stuff, and I can’t figure out what it’s about, it’s all really…” The tabby managed to take a breath, then laughed at the look on my face. “I’m guessing your characters don’t run on like that.”

“Sometimes, they do.” I grinned at him. “That’s when I work with them, to sort out the details, find out where the story might start, how to tell it.”

The young cat looked worried. “Even when the story isn’t done yet?”

I leaned forward, my grin still more conspiratorial, and I whispered, “Especially then.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Even though he had steeled himself for the moment, Theo was still nervous. It had been nearly six years since he’d seen Conner, and he had no idea how he would react when he saw the otter again. A lot of memories from those days came up for him as a result of reading that email. So much curiosity, fumbling, uncertainty, discoveries that could only be described as “explosive”… Funny, sad, confusing, all at the same time. They were both good and bad, those memories, but they were persistent, and they had been refreshed in the cat’s mind.

He sat in the back booth of the local burger joint, someplace that hadn’t succumbed to the chains. Tristan had told him that it had the feel of “an old-fashioned malt shop,” and he promised to show him a film, later, that would help define that description for him. The restaurant was a good distance from home; he was grateful for the ride to get here. It’s good to have family to look out for you.

“Hey, yowen.”

Theo looked up as the otter slid into the other side of the booth. He was sure that Conner had to have been thinking some variation of the same thought: He looks all growed up. The cat amused himself by thinking of the nearly half-year between their ages, the mustelid being the older. It made no difference now, but Conner became a “teen” some months ahead of Theo, and it was somehow a distinction, back then. That was where the diminutive had come from.

“You look good,” the otter offered.

“Thank you. You look pretty spicy yourself, if you don’t mind my saying.” In fact, Theo realized, he reminded him a lot of Wilford. He wasn’t sure if Conner could pole dance. Definitely not in the clothes he was wearing today. Gone were the jeans and t-shirt of younger days; now, it was slacks and a button-down. They looked strange on the otter from so long ago. Things really do change, the cat supposed.

Conner blushed profusely under his short, pale golden fur, looking around himself. “It’s not something I think about, these days.”

“Didn’t mean to embarrass you, bro.” Theo offered a quick smile, although something in him didn’t feel like smiling. “Your email got me thinking about old times.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be.” The cat’s smile felt more genuine at this point. “There were a lot of good memories from back then.”

“And a lot of trouble.”

Theo’s smile fell slightly, but not much. “I landed on my hindpaws. That’s what felines do.”

Conner’s silence lasted for several awkward seconds before he said, “How did you land? What happened?”

“I got adopted into a great family. Big, happy family.” It wasn’t a lie; the adoption was entirely legal, with Phil and Helena being the “official” parents on the papers. The rest of his huge family was a much-welcomed bonus. “They helped me to get my GED, and I’ve been taking classes at the community college over the past few years. May go to uni at some point. How about you?”

“My papa wants me in the family business, just like always.” The otter’s smile seemed… what was the word Theo wanted? Frozen? Forced? Vacant? “I started working at the store about a year after we… after it happened. I got my certificate, too, and I’ve been working full-time since then.”

“Sounds pretty good.” Theo felt that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the same. He didn’t think it would be. He expected things to be different, just not like this, not this kind of different. The otter sitting in front of him was Conner, six years older, yet he wasn’t… There was something missing, but the cat couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Are you seeing anyone?” the otter asked. The sensation was of a gumball dropping out of a machine, or even of chatting with an AI bot.

“No one special, I have to say.” Another truth that Theo was careful not to elaborate on. He did offer his companionship to a few particular clients who cuddled more than anything else. He had shared more than his fur when situations were mutually agreed upon, particularly with certain special family members, once he’d come of age. There was a sweet-natured Shep at the college who had certainly caught his eye, and the feelings might be mutual; the few coffee dates had been pleasant and promising, but he wouldn’t know anything certain for a while. “What about you?”

“I’m engaged. We’re getting married next June.” The mustelid made a laugh that sounded carefully rehearsed and delivered right on cue. “Corny, but Lois wants to be a June bride. She’s very traditional, I guess you’d say.”

“That’s wonderful. Congratulations.” Theo’s response was automatic. He had no desire to be insincere, but his heart and mind reacted with the expected words in order to give him a few seconds to absorb the information. Conner had said that he’d gotten his certificate, not that he had graduated, not that he had gotten a GED. Home schooled? That can result in someone certifying equivalency, supposedly the same thing. Certificate, back into the family business, getting married… His mind found the next question for him. “How did you meet her?”

“Oh, Lois is the daughter of a family we know from church. She’s really good with numbers, too, so she’s learning bookkeeping. Might even be able to work with my mom at the store, take some of the workload off her.”

A few more seconds of hesitation as Theo carefully made sure that his ears and tail didn’t twitch, that his fur didn’t shift or bristle. It was a handy trick that Abram had taught him, to avoid the “tell” of being afraid or uncomfortable. Conner’s whole demeanor was making the cat uncomfortable. The word inbreeding came to mind, inaccurately, but it had that sense, the feeling of all this coming together all too easily, all too perfectly, keeping it all in the family. It could be true, yes; such happily-ever-after things did happen. Getting married at 20? And to a female? Theo would have bet heavily upon Lois being an otter, that she was the same age as (or younger than) Conner, and that she was expected to bear at least three pups. He chastised himself for the uncharitable thought that she might be a virgin and that, in his way, so was Conner. His homosexual experiences would not be an impediment. He was intelligent; he could learn a skill. The furson in front of Theo was very different. This was not the otter than he had known so intimately, six years ago. Granted, someone could change a lot in that time, but to be so far from where he had begun…

“I’m glad that my life is coming together so well,” said Conner. “I’m very lucky that I’ve come so far in the last few years.”

It was then that Theo felt something click in his head. Conner had looked the feline in the eyes while saying all this. Tactical error. What lay behind those eyes was emptiness, the kind of No One Home look that poor actors have when they’re more worried about remembering their next line than interacting with the other players in the scene. This was all rehearsed, over-rehearsed, and the otter was trying to believe that his life was exactly how it was supposed to be. Theo chose to change the script.

“Conner,” he said softly, “when you contacted me, I wasn’t sure what you wanted of me. Why did you want to meet?”

“To tell you the great news, to find out what you’ve up to, how you’ve been doing all this time.”

“I see.” Theo didn’t mean to take such pauses between his words, but it felt right. “I had something else in mind. I wanted to talk about our time together.”

The mustelid’s response could have been scripted as well. The eyes showed a touch of fear, the sound of a quick tattoo of the otter’s tail against the booth’s bench, before the face/mask showed disappointment, pain, shame. “That’s in the past, Theo.”

“Yes, it is. Like I said, your email made me think about it again, and it brought back a lot of memories.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“But that’s my point, Conner.” The tabby resisted his natural urge to offer his forepaw, the gesture of comfort, of connection; he was certain it would be refused, or misconstrued (intentionally?) as a come-on. “We shared so much in those eight months — actually, 257 days, I counted. We discovered so much, and it became more than just ‘fooling around,’ to me. We talked, when we had time, and I felt so close to you…”

“I’ve outgrown all that.”

Theo forgot his calm demeanor for a moment; his quiet voice stayed quiet but became more intense. “Outgrown what? Intimacy? Sharing? Caring about someone so deeply?”

Conner shook his head hard. “It was just a phase. I did those things, but they don’t mean anything.”

“For me, Conner, it meant everything. You were my first love, and I wanted to thank you for that. I came here to thank you for the loving that we shared.”

“I said, I’ve moved past that.” The otter visibly trembled as his mask began to slip. “It wasn’t what you said. It wasn’t like that. It was just a phase, something that I grew out of. I’m not like that. You shouldn’t be either.”

“Good advice.”

Theo whipped his head around to face a voice he knew but hadn’t heard for six years, not since the same voice told him he was damned to Hell and never to come back to that house.

Across from him, the cat noticed Conner nearly breaking the sound barrier as he got out of the booth to make way for the tom and queen who had arrived, silently, stonily. The female sat first, so that the male could sit to the outside of the booth, to protect her from assaults and prying eyes. That had never been said aloud, yet it was ingrained in Theo’s mind as surely as laws engraved on stone tablets. Fear and its various masks (anger, disgust, defensiveness, superiority, to name a few) passed through the young feline, a wave of icy cold, the sense of fight-or-flight, threatening to take away his mind and his voice. He remembered a certain Word, focused on it as he had trained himself to do, and he felt himself calming again.

In the brief moment of silence, Theo took a look at the fursons in front of him. Like Conner, they had aged six years, although they looked older than that. The young tabby wasn’t entirely sure what made them look older. They both had gained some weight, some worry lines about the eyes and forehead. A few white hairs amid their natural gray fur. It was the pinched look of his father’s face and muzzle that added yet more years to him.

“Hello, Teddy,” the female said tentatively. Theo felt the fear in her, but he couldn’t decide what she was afraid of. The sensation was that she was afraid merely speaking to him would put her soul in danger.

“I usually go by Theo, or Theodore, these days,” he said in his gentlest voice.

“Don’t talk back to your mother,” the male across from Theo growled.

“Not my intention,” he continued softly. “It has been some time, and I have changed.”

“We hear differently.”

Theo kept hold of his mind and heart. “Oh?”

“Philip and Helena Cooper.” The names were said as if they were being called to the dock to face charges.

“My parents,” Theo managed before the cold tried to envelop him again.

“WE are your parents, Teddy,” the male insisted, loudly enough for one of the servers to glance over at them.

“You are my birth parents; Phil and Helena adopted me.” He bit off the words after you threw me out. Abram had tutored him well for this moment, as Conner had not made it clear when or how Theo’s parents would want to see him. The kitsune had smelled a trap, and the young cat was prepared. Avoid aggression. Agree with facts or possibilities, not with what they say. The technique was called “fogging,” and it could be very effective in this type of conflict.

While the tom seethed, the queen asked softly, “Did they treat you well?” Although she tried to hide it, the move to put her forepaw onto the tom’s arm, to keep him quiet, was easy to see.

“Yes, they did. They helped me study, right through the high school levels. I got my GED two years ago, and then they helped me get into City Community for my first college classes. They gave me a new family to be part of. They fed and clothed me, showed me books, kept my mind active, kept my body healthy. They have access to gym equipment, and I keep my muscles toned.”

“So you can be a whore?” the tom spat, causing a few more heads at nearby tables to turn anxiously.

“I am not a whore.” Again, softly, correcting a statement with fact.

“They’re all whores in that place!”

“The Menagerie is a bar with dancers. It’s not a whorehouse.”

“It’s an abomination and should be burned to the ground!”

“Speaking for myself,” said a new voice, “I would take exception to that.”

No cavalry could be superior to the presence of the well-dressed, superbly-formed fox who stood next to the table. Showing only one tail, he showed also an attitude of absolute confidence, perhaps even acceptance of the adversarial felines across from Theo. The young cat made the introductions.

“Abram, these are my birth parents, Roger and Mandy Warren. This is the owner of The Menagerie; his name is Abram.”

“What’s his last name?” Roger demanded.

“I am called Abram,” the fox replied. “It has served me well over the years.”

“Everyone has a last name!”

“Cher, Meatloaf, and Sting seem to have gotten along well. May I sit down?”

“Yes, please,” Theo offered, scootching over to make room.

“You have no business here,” the tom insisted.

“Quite the contrary.” The fox settled himself into the space with his characteristic lithe grace. “Theo is part of my family. I have helped him over these last six years, as have all of us. We are all family at The Menagerie.”

Roger turned to the younger tabby. “You don’t have to stay there. There’s a better life for you.”

“We know a fine female for you, Teddy… Theo,” Mandy tried. “You’d like her a lot, and she’d fall in love with you in a heartbeat, I know she would.”

Slowly, Theo shook his head. “That’s not what I want.”

“You don’t have to tell us what’s happened to you,” she continued, her voice pleading. “You’ve outgrown all that. Just put all that behind you and come back to your real family.”

It was the phrasing that caught the young feline’s ear. In fact, he felt an ear flick, and perhaps it was that which signaled Abram, let the fox stay quiet while Theo found his voice again.

“That’s why Conner wrote to me, after all this time.” The ideas clicked into place instantly, and the feline surprised himself by not succumbing to rage. “It was you who wanted me to see him. You want me to become him.”

“He’s moved on from all that nonsense, all that sin and corruption.” Roger was back on his bandwagon. “You can do that, too.”

Theo was aware that neither of his birth parents looked at Abram, and the young tabby was reasonably sure that the kitsune had neither disappeared nor put on some invisibility glamour. The older felines had dismissed him… no, shunned him, made him invisible to them. Quite the superpower.

“I don’t want to.”

“Of course you do,” Roger insisted. “All that was just a phase you went through. You’re old enough to know that now, to understand that you can be normal. Have a normal life.”

Roger’s gaze… Theo became aware that there was nothing familial in his way of thinking about the cat in front of him, not even in the memories of those first 13 years. This furson’s gaze, Roger’s gaze, remained pinned on him, demanding an answer. He was just about ready to give him one.

Mandy — again, there no sense of emotional or familial connection to this female cat — said, “Teddy, it was… I’m sorry… Theo, it was wrong of us to disown you.”

“Yes, it was.” The words, quiet, without emphasis, escaped him before he could stop them.

The female looked ashamed (right on cue, Theo thought) but pressed on. “We’ve learned from the pastor and from Conner’s parents. We should have loved you properly, led you out of the darkness that had taken you.”

“It’s the past now,” Roger insisted. “We failed you then, but we can help you now. We can help you be normal, like Conner.”

For one swift moment, Theo closed his eyes and remembered a hundred memories at once, a cascade of moments, events, emotions, sensations. He remembered the curious touch of soft, webbed paws, fore and aft. He could feel the fur and muscles of the lean mustelid, and the scent of him, and the first time that they each discovered the “payoff,” the first ones dry, then the fluid (“Ooo, gross… well, maybe not.. do guys really…?”). They learned from smuggled porn, like most males at that age, and then they learned from each other.

After what seemed (now) like a long time, the two yowens had started to talk. They bonded over having a secret, and that bond grew into what Theo later learned to call intimacy and empathy. They talked, stayed together, didn’t just rush to the finish line, took time whenever they could. That’s how they got found out. Conner’s dam came home early, more quietly than usual, found them furclad on Conner’s bed, entangled in each other’s arms.

The rest, Theo dismissed, remembering instead all the time since his own shunning. In another swift moment, he brought into his heart all of his true family, all that he had accomplished, all he had done to find himself and make himself into someone he liked and could be proud of.

He opened his eyes again, looking directly into Roger’s. “I haven’t seen Conner in six years.”

“You just spoke with him.”

Slowly, Theo shook his head. “I don’t know who that was. It wasn’t Conner. I knew Conner well. We bonded truly, lovingly. We talked a lot, in those days, did you know that?”

Roger growled lowly. “He has become a male since then.”

“He seemed pretty male to me, at the time.”

Mandy gasped audibly at the implications of the comment. Roger leaned forward, his anger showing clearly by the flattening of his ears. “How dare you speak like that in front of your mother!”

Theo felt himself smile a little. “Actually, Helena would be howling with laughter and adding in her own two cents.”

“Stop that now!” Roger slapped a forepaw hard on the table. “Apologize to your mother!”

“Are you going to listen to me,” the young tabby said softly, “or are you going to get us thrown out of here?”

It was only then that the elder feline turned his head to see that his outburst had attracted more attention from the nearby tables. He made a cursory nod to the other customers, seeming to think that this was sufficient apology. Turning back to Theo, he said, “If you have something of value to say, I will listen.”

“What do you consider to be of value?”

“That you will save your soul and your life by coming home to your family.”

Quietly, without aggression, Theo took Abram’s forepaw into his own and said, “I will save my soul and my life by going home to my family. I only regret,” he added, “that I can’t save Conner’s life as well.”

Abram shifted out of the booth so smoothly that even Mandy and Roger couldn’t react quickly enough. Still holding the fox’s forepaw, the young feline began following him, when Roger thrust forward an arm in an attempt to grab Theo’s wrist. Faster than Theo could track, Abram had Roger’s forepaw in his own, giving it a firm yet gentle twist that made the cat sit back onto the seat.

“I am not trying to hurt you,” the vulpine said quietly, “merely to stop you. I think it’s time we left.”

“Me, too.”

The new voice belonged to an old timber wolf whose gut probably concealed even more muscles than those showing on his powerful arms. His apron marked him as a grill-master, and his nametag (Jason) included the word MANAGER on it.

“We deeply apologize for any problems,” Abram said smoothly, releasing Roger’s wrist. “A difference of opinion that was getting too intense. If any of your customers have been disturbed, I humbly will compensate their meals.”

“You didn’t do nuthin’,” a cheetah perhaps a year younger than Theo said from a nearby table, his comely female spaniel companion not quite hiding behind him. He nodded at Roger. “I thought that guy was gonna start somethin’.”

The manager looked pointedly at Roger. “You aren’t, are you?”

“Of course not,” Roger grumped. “We are good Christians.”

“Gonna turn the other cheek then, right?”

For a moment, Theo genuinely thought that Roger was going to have a blood vessel pop in his head. He did not wish that on him, and he looked to Abram for help. In the next moment, Roger struggled out of the booth, followed by a thoroughly flustered Mandy, who tried to avoid the stares of various customers.

The wolf waved helpfully toward the front of the restaurant. “Allow me to see you to the doors.” When Abram also started moving that way, he said, “Why don’t you two wait for me here, just for a minute. Have a seat.”

It was then that Theo realized how wobbly his legs were, how his breath was ragged and his heart raced. He fell more than sat in the booth again, and Abram was there to steady him. The spaniel and a few others gasped quietly, and the cheetah rose, asking, “You okay?”

Quickly, Theo nodded, took a breath. “Yeah, thanks; just a little overwhelmed.”

Abram moved to the other side of the booth, to give the cat some room. Other patrons appeared more concerned than upset. It seemed that all ages were represented as well as many species. The “old-fashioned malt shop” felt like a very friendly place, and Theo was grateful for it.

The manager returned quickly, pulled up a chair next to the booth, straddling it in one smooth motion. He looked at the feline calmly, asking, “May I see your ID? Just to verify your age.”

“May I ask…?” Abram spoke softly.

“I got a dose of hellfire and accusations out there. I just want to be sure…” The wolf looked quickly at the card Theo offered, then nodded. “Checking you’re adult age, in case those nut jobs make good on their threats.”

The fox scowled. “You were threatened?”

Shrugging, Jason said, “I am ‘aiding and abetting in a kidnapping’ and in the ‘endangering of your mortal soul,’ apparently. You don’t look like you’re being held against your will, and your soul is your own business.”

Abram smiled. “Yours looks intact as well, good fur.”

“Did you two ever get a chance to order?” In response to the surprised looks, the wolf said, “Just an idea to give them time to give up watching the front doors and drive away.”

“You’ve seen this before,” Theo said softly.

“Not here, but yeah. Good to let ‘em cool off, and you two look cool enough. What can I get ya? Need a menu?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“That was the best-tasting chocolate malt I’ve ever had,” the kit said, then grinned. “My first, actually. It was delicious.”

It had been nearly a week since our first conversation. Theo had asked if anyone could drive him to the burger place; I had volunteered, but Abram had requested the honor. It had taken place today (Saturday), lunchtime (on the rest of the world’s clock), and the kitsune was now back in his own rooms, to nap before making ready for his evening of assisting at the green door, one way and another. The young feline had been as wired on his return as he was when first we talked. He was also tired, having broken his usual sleep patterns by a few hours so that he could prepare for the meeting. We shared our fur in his bed as he told his story, letting out the fear, the exhilaration, a bit of both. His face went through many changes as he lay there, looking at me, giving me all of his story to be told later.

“How are you feeling, kitten?” I asked him.

“Grateful,” he said, petting my headfur tenderly. “You gave me a chance to try out ways that my story could go before I actually did it. A few things I’d imagined didn’t happen, which is good, and I was able to keep myself together through what went down.”

“Sounds to me like you handled yourself well. How about Conner?”

I almost regretted saying it, seeing a sadness creep into his eyes. A moment later, his smile returned, wan, knowing. “I hope he’ll be all right, whatever happens. Maybe he really will be happy after all. I mean, maybe he wants what he’s going to do. The wife, family, job, all that Wholesome Dream package. It could happen.” He paused, wondering if there could be any truth in his words.

“Would you want that for yourself?”

“No.” His response was neither quick nor emphatic; it was thoughtful and emotionally sound. “My family, my life here, all that I’m building… that’s what I want.” He paused, considering again. “I don’t think I’ll hear from Conner again.”

“Maybe you will.” I gave him a tender smile of my own. “It could happen.”

Theo laughed gently, kissed my forehead, sighed softly. “I think I might be able to nap a little before the evening starts. Would you stay with me?”

“Gladly.”

He gave me a chaste kiss before rolling over and spooning in my embrace. I raised my muzzle to his ear, whispering, “Hey, Theo…”

“Mmm?”

“Welcome home.”

Wiggling gently against me, he sighed contentedly, and we let ourselves relax together.